1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wireless carriers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and information content delivery services/providers. More particularly, it relates to wireless telecommunications, ANSI-41D Wireless Intelligent Network (WIN) applications, and prepaid applications.
2. Background of Related Art
In recent years, the telecommunication industry has seen an explosive growth both in the particular types of services offered and in the number of service providers. Among the numerous services now being offered, prepaid call service may be one of the fastest growing segments in the telecommunication industry today, particularly in the wireless device sector.
FIG. 4 depicts a simplified telecommunication system 100 including an Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) associated with wireless services and landline services. Exemplary landline systems include a private branch exchange, public pay phones, or home or business telephones serviced by Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) 111. Exemplary wireless systems include a Personal Communication Service 108, a paging system 109, or a cellular system 110 or other wireless digital telephone system.
The system elements shown in FIG. 4 are linked via a separate high-speed messaging network called Signaling System 7 (SS7) 112, used to support a variety of special services and advanced call-handling features across multiple vendor domains. Signal Transfer Points (STPs) 106 are tandem packet switches that route SS7 messages among SCPs and SSPs. Switch Service Points (SSPs) 107 are distributed switching nodes that send and receive data from the wireless 110 or landline 111 telecommunication systems for interaction with a Services Control Point (SCP) 101. The SCPs 101 centrally control telephone services provided to subscribers from diversely located switching systems.
An SCP 101 typically includes a computer 102, a database 103, and programmed service logic 104 which manages several system features, including prepaid services. By accessing SCP intelligent nodes, subscribers are able to design and control their own services and customize features without telephone company involvement, provided the feature is offered by the local carrier.
With the advent of the AIN, advantages to the subscribers are numerous. For instance, the service logic 104 can be programmed to implement advanced call handling and service features such as Intelligent Caller Data, Disaster Routing, Intelligent Call Redirection, Intelligent One-Number Calling, Intelligent Call Screening, Automatic Callback, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or speech recognition, bandwidth on demand in order to support multimedia applications, custom billing and calling card services. The service logic 104 of the AIN can also be programmed to maintain subscriber accounts for prepaid services.
A Service Management System (SMS) 113, linked to the SCP, creates and introduces subscriber services. A billing system 105 is generally linked to the SCP 101. The billing system is generally responsible for tracking and billing subscribers for various services, as well as for providing remaining balance information to prepaid subscribers.
As the name implies, a prepaid call service allows a customer of the service to pay their service provider in advance for the use of their provider's network resources in making a telephone call, e.g., a wireless telephone call. The prepaid call service provides, among other things, an alternative option for a telephone user who might otherwise not be able to obtain the traditional postpaid telephone services because, e.g. of a bad credit rating, or of being in a geographical area where post paid service is unavailable. Also, prepaid call services allow a convenient way for a third party to prepay for a subscriber's subsequent calls (e.g., a parent or guardian prepaying for call services for their child away at college). The world-wide prepaid call services market is projected to grow tremendously in the next few years, encouraging service providers to add or upgrade their own prepaid service offerings to meet the demand.
To implement a prepaid call service for a particular subscriber, that subscriber caller must first deposit a sufficient amount of funds into an appropriate account, e.g., using cash, credit card, debit card and/or other means, to enable the ability to place subsequent telephone calls.
Alternatively, pre-deposited scratch card accounts are readily available for purchase in many convenience stores, providing a simple and direct method for a subscriber to initiate, maintain and/or replenish a prepaid account. Scratch cards may be utilized to repeatedly replenish a particular subscriber's prepaid account, even before a previous replenishment is exhausted. Scratch cards are typically available in varying pre-deposit amounts, e.g., $25, $50, etc. A given value card (e.g., a $30 card) provides a given amount of prepaid call minutes (e.g., 60 minutes) based on a desired call rating.
While scratch cards are convenient, they cause some difficulty to service providers as compared to other replenishment methods (e.g., credit cards, etc.) For instance, each scratch card offer typically provides a different rate plan, and the service provider essentially “switches” to the new rate plan as prior scratch card replenishments become exhausted. As an example, a $30 scratch card might offer a rate plan of $0.50 per minute providing 60 minutes of time, while a $50 scratch card might offer a rate plan of $0.40 per minute providing 125 minutes of time.
Since most service providers offer scratch cards that have different face values and/or rate plans, it is likely that a particular subscriber will replenish their prepaid accounts with scratch cards of differing amounts and/or differing rate plans. Thus, a particular subscriber might have various rate plans “in queue” as their prepaid amounts become used up.
Conventional prepaid services utilize a First-In/First-Out (FIFO) control and billing method to handle switch card replenishments. This conventional FIFO billing and control method typically chronologically stores and manages a list of scratch card face values and associated rate plans for each prepaid subscriber. Usually the rate plan of the next stored replenishment for any particular subscriber will take effect only after depletion of any prior replenishment.
The FIFO control and billing technique can report an accurate dollar amount remaining to a particular subscriber, but can provide only an estimate as to their remaining time. This is because the FIFO control and billing technique calculates the total available minutes provided by the various scratch cards by dividing the total dollar value of all replenishments (e.g., the current and all subsequently loaded scratch cards) by the replenishment rate plan which is currently active (i.e., which is currently being depleted) in dollars per minute.
For example, if a subscriber replenishes with a $25 scratch card providing a rate of $0.35 per minute, then later replenishes with a $50 dollar scratch card providing a rate of $0.25 per minute, the conventional FIFO billing and control approach would divide the total balance of $25+$50=$75 by the current (older) rate plan (e.g., ($75)/($0.35 per minute), resulting in an indication to a subscriber that their remaining prepaid balance is adequate to purchase 214 more minutes. However, the subsequent rate plan is lower than the prior rate plan, and errors and confusion result to the subscriber, who actually has 57 minutes more than the 214 minutes reported to them, i.e., they will actually have 271 minutes remaining once the rate plan changes. Ultimately, this leads to confusion on the part of the subscriber who was notified that only 214 minutes remained.
To avoid this confusion, the service provider has to ensure its subscribers that their available minutes will be recalculated and re-reported after the depletion of the active card balance. Once the final scratch card balance is used, the time remaining will finally be accurately reported. However, if the subscriber has a number of replenishment cards in queue, the current approach may not accurately or correctly track or report the correct total minutes available to the subscriber.
FIG. 5 shows the data elements of a single prepaid subscriber in a conventional subscriber database. As shown in FIG. 5, information must be maintained in the subscriber database 103 for each replenishment. In particular, for a single subscriber, multiple replenishment entries 700 must be maintained if they have not yet been depleted by the subscriber. Each entry includes both the dollar value 704-712 of the various entries, together with the corresponding rate 720-728. This database technique can become quite large, particularly if subscribers tend to have multiple replenishments remaining. Moreover, the technique is boundless for any particular subscriber (unless the service provider limits the number of un-depleted replenishments that a subscriber may store in their prepaid accounts).
Valuable computer processing time and database capacity is conventionally expended to manage and store replenishment data with respect to each subscriber account, which might be better utilized for other purposes, e.g., other services offered by the service provider.
Accordingly, there is a need for a prepay method and apparatus implemented in a telecommunications system that more accurately and efficiently determines and reports the remaining time available for a given prepaid account balance replenished with scratch cards.